


What She Deserves

by thatdragonchic



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Jasper and Mac make it better!, M/M, Mac helps Riley get over her heartbreak, Riley is Heartbroken, Riley is Very Hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 01:47:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18714037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatdragonchic/pseuds/thatdragonchic
Summary: When Jasper and his Boyfriend get in a "Fight" Jasper takes Riley out on the date he was supposed to take Mac. Riley deals with her emotions, and maybe becomes bff's with Mac's longterm beau.





	What She Deserves

Riley is curled up beside Mac when Jasper walks up the stairs, Riley looking up to Mac who doesn’t notice right away- she didn’t know much about Jasper. Nobody really did. They all knew him to exist within the scope of Mac’s world- that at some point after Nikki, they started casually dating, and that after months, casual became serious, and that now the two were in love- Mac never hid that from them. He gushed about him occasionally, the two just went back and forth between each others homes- Ohio some weekends, California other weekends, and when they both had a few days to themselves, they took vacations- usually filled with science ventures, and romantic restaurants. 

Mac looks up when he notices and stands to go and kiss him, Riley’s eyes somberly following Mac- she wasn’t surprised that long distance worked out well for him, she wish she knew why it hadn’t worked for her, where she went wrong with Billy. She’s telling herself it was him not her, but her thoughts are interrupted when Mac gasps, Jasper keeping the two at a bit of a distance.

“You  _ know  _ what you did,” he warns and Mac seems confused before realization dawns him, Riley’s eyes flicking about the group.

“Who told you?” 

“I have contacts in the CIA, you think they didn’t go, ‘oh hey, that boy of yours is runnin around committing treason-’”

“It was for a good cause!”

“What cause is good enough that I would personally have to put your ass in Jail, then, Mr. Macgyver?”

“It was sanctioned by the end,” Mac argues. 

“Yeah, after what?”

“Matty kidnapped the director of the CIA and bribed him into it.”

“You did what now?” Jasper asks, directly to Mac, Matty laughing perplexed, meeting eyes with Riley who shrugs.

“It wasn’t me! I was in Belarus, just doing what I was told!”

Jasper points an accusing finger at him, and for a minute their communication is purely eye contact. 

“I had nothing to do with it,” Riley says innocently, trying to break up the tension between them. Nobody had ever seen them fight before, and well, Riley thinks it’s lucky James even knows Jasper’s name- she wonders if maybe this was why Mac kept their relationship so on the down low.

“See,” Jasper says, gesturing to Riley, and there’s a look between the two that comes off a bit too knowing. “She knows to keep her nose out of business that puts you in Jail.” 

“It’s not as bad as it sounds-”

“Getting imprisoned isn’t as bad as it sounds?”

“Yes.”

“I am so not taking you to dinner anymore. Riley honey, come on,  _ we’ve  _ got a reservation.”

“Oh- Well, I don’t-”

“No you should go, I don’t want to go anyways,” Mac says stubbornly, and he’s clearly biting the inside of his cheek, and she’s not sure if he’s squinting at Jasper playfully or if they were being serious. 

“Not that I want to take a traitor to dinner anyways.”

“With that logical you can take the guest bed later.”

“ _ Gladly. _ ” Jasper ushers Riley up, and she finds herself walking into the heart of the house with him. 

“Where are we going?”

“Somewhere nice to eat.”

“I don’t have anything nice to wear right now.”

“Oh don’t worry honey, why don’t we go buy you a dress and get your makeup done?”

“What?”

“Sure, I know just the place. Come on. You wanna pick the music in the car?” He asks, already pulling out his keys and his phone as they go down the stairs to the tesla in the driveway. She thinks for someone she rarely spoke to, he was being oddly kind. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing… I just- are you really mad at him?”

Jasper laughs. “Please, I can’t be mad at those baby blue eyes even if he threw me into hell.”

“So, why are you taking me instead?”

“He said he was real tired earlier, and I know sometimes the ops really take it out of him, so I figured he’d probably rather sit on that porch of his than get dressed in something fancy.” 

She nods, getting in the car, settling down, and he hands her his phone with the spotify open and she smiles when she sees a  _ what mac makes me feel  _ playlist that was locked. She thinks that it was sweet- that he had something like that. She clicks on the playlist she wants, Jasper pulling out of the driveway. She notices in the back seat are a duffle bag and suitcase and she looks over to Jasper as he turns out of the neighborhood. 

“Did you just fly in?”

“Yeah, from San Francisco. I cashed in big on one of my ideas, and thought I’d take Mac out tonight but you’re company is just as good.”

She doesn’t know if he means that, but he has this charming southern accent that felt homely- kinda like Jack’s, has he always had that? And his smile was warm, and welcoming. It begged her to trust him, to just let him enjoy her company. 

“I don’t talk science quite as good,” Riley jokes and he smiles. 

“Yeah, he talks good sometimes, doesn’t he?” 

“He does…” The look on Jasper’s face is easily described as dreamy, and she wishes someone looked softer like that when they mentioned her. 

“Besides, all I did was science for a week. So you better have some exciting non science stories,” he’s clearly teasing and Riley laughs. The drive is easy, and they don’t talk much but Jasper is more fun than she remembers. Usually he and Mac are so caught up in each other that nobody else got wind of what they were laughing about, or why Mac smiled like that. But Jasper is singing and tells jokes, and funny stories. Riley is laughing so hard in the passenger seat that she can’t breathe. 

He takes her to a boutique in downtown LA and they’re greeted by a very fashionable group of men and women, decked in hats, jewlery, expensive, nice clothing, holding glasses of champagne, or stylish looking tea cups. 

“Jasper! Darling!” One cheers. “What brings you?”

“My friend here needs an outfit, we’re going to dinner at LA Prime,” he informs, and Riley seems to be the only one who doesn’t know what this restaurant is. She smiles, and they fashion her in a shimmering black dress that clung to her body, with a low v neck. They adorned the v neck with a gold choker that had thin chains dangling, like her neck was dripping gold down into the v neck of the dress. They style her hands with rings, and do her makeup- subtle enough of a look that she looks effortlessly perfect, her hair waved and pulled back with a clip. 

Jasper is waiting in the lounge, and he seems to have a group of acquaintances when she returns, drinking coffee from a cup that says  _ caffeine or I’m a fiend.  _ One of the stylists sat next to him, and they all look up when Riley enters the room in her new outfit and heels, Japser beaming. 

“You look great!” He says, putting his mug down and standing to take her hand and spin her as he admires her look. “Now I must say, I’ve never seen a woman so pretty. But don’t tell Kaori I said that.”

She laughs, she can’t help it, her day went from the worst day ever to suddenly feeling on top of the world. Nobody had ever done something like this for her. 

“I should pay half,” she frets and he dismisses her. 

“Not at all. It’s all on me tonight darling, don’t worry about a thing.”

She nods, and they go to the LA Prime as promised. It’s hidden in a very high quality hotel, and they’re escorted up as if they were very official, but Jasper waves a badge, and they nod, and treat him like he’s first class royalty. The restaurant is a beautiful, warmly lit room, with other gorgeously dressed people, everything smelled heavenly. Riley had never even thought about entering a restaurant this nice- not outside of an op had she ever even sat in a room like this for her own casual pleasure.

Their seats are like single person couches, and the table cloth is soft to the touch, with candle light between them, and two waiters are already setting bread down and listing the wine choices. Riley shrugs when Jasper looks at her to choose, she doesn’t know enough about wine to pick out a whole bottle. 

“The rosatello rose sounds lovely,” Jasper says and Riley smiles in thanks. She squints at Jasper a moment, replaying everything that’s happened in the past couple of hours. She thinks it’s quite coincidental that Jasper just happened to cancel his reservation with Mac to take her the same day that she dumped Billy- Mac hadn’t even bothered to get up and get ready.

“Did he tell you?” She asks after a moment.

“Did who tell me what?” Jasper asks, looking up from where he’s laid his napkin in his lap. 

“Mac. Did he tell you?”

“Tell me…? Is it your birthday?” Jasper asks, seeming a bit more cheery and she laughs. 

“No,” she draws out, smiling sweetly. 

“Half birthday?”

“Nooo?”

“Is it your anniversary at phoenix?”

“Noooo..?”

“Then, we’re going to make this an occasion,” Jasper decides. “It’s our own little holiday.”

“What are we calling it?”

“Hmm…. I don’t know, I think I’ve done too much thinking lately. You should choose.”

She laughs, her hands on the table as she leans forward and thinks. He butters a slice of bread and offers she takes a bite, so she does. “Mm… It should be a holiday for this butter.”

“Prime Butter day?”

“Prime Butter day.”

She leans back, looking around, and she can hardly see Mac choosing to go to a place like this, let alone dress up to go to a place like this. She’d seen a few pictures of him dressed very sharply at a party or two with Jasper, but she just couldn’t picture him, in his room, picking out that extra nice collared shirt, putting on his best cologne, fixing his hair into place. She couldn’t imagine him sitting at a table like this, and not at least questioning why.

“What’s going on in your head?” Jasper asks. 

“Just… I don’t know, this isn’t… Mac.” 

Jasper laughs. “Believe it or not, it kind of is. See- I have him figured out to a science. He doesn’t admit he likes really nice things, but he does. He just… he’s so selfless, and he sort of… he lucks himself out. And making plans drives him nuts- he thinks too much about it. So I don’t make plans directly with him, just, if I know we’re spending a night together, I like to treat him nice, you know? He never gets treated… the way I think he deserves to be, he gets so excited to just spend a night out. So, I pretend like you know- I pulled a few strings got us an exclusive table, took some convincing, but really I made it a month ago. That way all he has to think about is when I get there and tell him to wear something nice.”

“And you always go to places like this?”

“Nah, last time we went to dinner we went to this famous food truck that was in a lot somewhere. I wore one of his flannel shirts, and we sat on the hood of the car, and we were just there for hours… I don’t know, I just like  _ taking  _ him places.”

“So you don’t actually have those contacts you say you have?” She teases.

“I do, just usually I’m not a jerk who’s always pulling last minute tables.”

“He just thinks you are?”

“Riley, I’ve been with him 4 years, do you think he hasn’t figured it out?”

“I don’t know… we don’t really know a lot about you, especially you two together.”

Jasper nods, and shrugs. “Well I’ll answer anything you want to know about me.”

“How do you spend your free time?”

“Depends on the day, but normally I get up, I feed the cats-”

“You have cats?”

“Yeah, well… Technically only one lives with me, but I adopt and tag strays so they don’t get send to slaughter pounds. And a lot of them just come visit me in the morning and I make them breakfast. Then after that, I go to tend to the garden and check on my snails- and before you ask, yes I also have snails. Mac especially loves my one snail Matcha, and he especially loves my cat Matzo Ball Soup. But Whiskey is my baby, and he usually stays in the house. Once I’ve eaten, I usually work out- and then spend my day either painting or in my lab, or volunteering locally at the youth centers.” 

Riley nods, not sure what to say. “Wow… Are you like half angel?”

“No just really love having pets. Makes me feel like I have company all the time.”

“Oh… Must be relaxing.”

“It is. Mac loves to sit under the tomato vines in the summer, and I think I’d really love to move somewhere with him where he can have things like that- a place to relax like that. I keep telling him we could start a small garden on his deck, but he’s right, just… it’s not the same. I mean, I’m so secluded in my own nature bubble at the end of a cul-de-sac, that like…. It’s me, my gardens and trees and the woods. And all the pets I have. But he lives in a city, and so… It’s different.”

“I knew Mac loved nature, I didn’t know he liked gardening though.”

“Oh no, he hates gardening,” Jasper confirms and Riley laughs. “But he’s in luck because I think it’s the best thing in the world. So, he gets to reap all the pleasures of a garden and I get to enjoy gardening.” Riley smiles, listening to Jasper recall one morning when Mac came home from his run, and just lay in the grass beside him, and how nice the sun looked shadowing over him. Their wine comes, and soon they’re getting served this delicious 3 course meal, though they’re so stuffed they decide to relocate for dessert. All the while, she gets to hear all these stories of Mac- things about him she’d never even known, and she tells Jasper the stories of Mac he’d never heard.

“You didn’t have to do all this,” Riley says softly, digging her spoon into the cup of ice cream they got a few miles away from the restaurant.

“Course I did, let a man treat you right,” he says. “That way you’ll never expect anything less than what you deserve.”

She nods, squinting at him a moment, but she was just having so much fun, and she felt so loved and secured. She wonders if this is how Mac always felt, she thinks that Mac  _ must  _ always feel this way. Probably feel it more intensely when he held Jaspers hand, or was kissed by him. She thinks it must have been so easy to fall in love with a man like that. His phone lights up with the name  _ Jones  _ and a lovey dovey message. Jasper smiles softly.

“Who’s that?” she asks, eyes narrowing a bit.

“Mac, says he misses me soooo much, wants us to be home soon and don’t forget apples for the tarte I was going to make with Bozer tomorrow.”

She nods. “Why’s he Jones in your phone?” she presses a bit.

Jasper laughs. “Because when we went on our first real date, I kept teasing him he looked real familiar, and he finally asked why, and I go through a list of the most ridiculous things, right? And finally I tell him, you know, he looked like Catherine Zita Jones, because he had a star quality to him. And so I guess the name just stuck, because to me he’s Jones, he’s my star.”

Riley’s heart melts. “You two are disgustingly cute,” she says, smiling, and she knows if she thinks hard of enough she can recall Jasper calling him that, but she’s not thinking too much right now. “You think you two will last?”

“Can you keep a secret, Miss Davis?”

“Yes…?”

“I bought him an engagement ring.”

She gasps, smiling. “You did?”

He nods, pulling up a picture on his phone. She gasps again, softer this time. It was a simple silver band with a shimmering sapphire star in the center. “That’s beautiful,” she says. 

“You think he’ll like it? I know he’s not really into deco… so I had it custom made by a local, it’s real simple- but do you think it’s too simple?”

“No, I think he’ll love it,” She says, and she just wants to cry for Mac, because they really did think the worst of his relationship sometimes- questioned Jasper’s motives, and actions, and heart, and yet… there was a moment Riley could doubt Jasper’s love for Mac, how quick he was to gush about him, how he spent the night entirely fascinated in the stories Riley told about him, how similar they were, and how she saw that Mac had adopted some of his movements- how Jasper had adopted some of Mac’s. How he got a ring that was perfect and was still afraid it wasn’t good enough. “He will… he’ll love it,” She says, suddenly her eyes welling up and Jasper instantly pulls her into his arms. “My makeup…” she says, sobbing into his shoulder, afraid to stain it, but so overwhelmed with emotions. 

“It’s okay, ain’t nothing a little arm and hammer can’t fix,” he says softly, rocking her in his strong arms, rubbing her back slowly. “It’s okay baby girl… whatever it is hurting you, it’s okay.”

Riley clings to him, clinging to the safety and warmth he emitted. Clinging to his gentle words, and gentle voice. Her heart broke all over again, afraid she could never have this. Never have something that was so entirely special to her she had to keep it private, to herself. Have someone that loved her so much that just her name made them smile. She was so afraid she’d never find the Jasper Sheriff of her life- the man who wanted to give her everything she needed, even if she didn’t know she needed it, or wanted it. 

He lets her cry, and he wipes her tears. Helps her clean up with the tissues he has in the car. The ice cream’s melted, and they end up throwing it away in the garbage can just outside their parking spot on the side of the street. He drives them back to Mac, this time accepting Mac in his arms and kissing him gently.

“You done bein moody?” he teases and Mac rolls his eyes.

“Sorry for driving you up a wall,” Mac says softly, and Jasper smiles.

“Can I share a secret?” Riley hears him say and Mac raises a brow. “I would’ve done the same thing.” The whole room laughs, Jasper kissing the side of Mac’s face. Riley is clutching her clothes in her arms against the fabulous dress, feeling like everyone looked at her sympathetically as she pattered over to sit beside Matty who rubbed her leg. Leanna had joined, and Desiree had left, Leanna moving to sit against Riley’s legs and comfortingly rub her knees. Either she still seems upset, or Mac had told them. She’s leaning towards the former over the latter, because Mac would never tell them, not if she had already told him not to. 

“Mac honey,” Jasper says after a moment of silence, eyes lingering between the two. “Why don’t you come help me get my bags in and settled into the room.”

Mac nods. “I think that sounds like a great idea.”

The second they’re out the door, Matty looks to Riley. “So what’s our boys secret lover like in private?”

“Honestly? I have never met a better man,” Riley says. “I mean… he does more charity than all of us combined, he paints, he keeps a garden, he adopts strays so they don’t get killed at pounds, and he talks about Mac like Mac is his whole world, like he’s the only person who could ever exist. I mean, you should hear him… he just… is so in love with him. And he smiles when you say his name, and he told me that the only reason he pretended to fight with him was because he knew the op made Mac tired and he wanted Mac to rest, but he had already made the reservation. And I mean, he took me to a salon, got me this dress and my makeup and… all this jewelry, and that was for one night! He does this for Mac all the time, he treats Mac like  _ this  _ all the time, because he wants Mac to live his life, and have the best things and…” Riley feels so welled up with emotion again. 

“Oh Honey,” Matty rubs her arm. “What’s wrong? Isn’t that good?”

“That’s so good,” Riley says, her lip quivering. “And I’m so happy for him. I am… I just- I want that too. I want someone like that too.” Leanna sits up and pulls her into her arms. 

“You will, baby, of course you will,” She coos, rubbing her back. Riley freshens up in a moment, wiping her tears.

“I shouldn’t be crying, I really just had the nicest meal I’ve ever had, and this amazing, weird flavored ice cream… ugh, can we keep him Matty? He’s… so much fun,” she says, and everyone laughs a little. 

“If Jasper wants to stay we can keep him.”

 

Mac leans against the car door, Jaspers suitcase by their legs, Jasper holding his duffle. 

“She’s just… going through it,” Jasper promises and Mac nods.

“Hey, thanks for doing this for me,” Mac says, and Jasper laughs.

“I’m surprised you were able to fake that fight.”

“I was very close to giving myself up,” Mac admits, and Jasper laughs, kissing Mac gently.  “She had fun?”

“She did, at least I think she did. She told me about Battlestar Galactica for 45 minutes and she seemed to be really enjoying that?” 

“Oh yeah… she really loves that movie.”

“You look pained.”

“I know too much because of her.”

Jasper laughs, and they go inside, Riley wobbling in her heels, Mac stepping forward to help her to the guest bed. 

“You should stay here tonight,” Mac says softly.

“I don’t want to intrude.”

“Nah, besides Jasper is making french toast tomorrow morning and you don’t want to miss that event.”

She laughs, hugging Mac tightly, and he hugs her back. “Deal. Tell him this was the best night ever for me?”

“Promise. Gonna go straight to bed?”

“I think so.”

He nods, kissing her forehead before letting Riley go to sleep. Riley smiles, and Mac thinks that maybe he’s already helped her start recovering from her heart ache, that when anything hurts he always had Jasper to turn to, to make him smile, to take him on an adventure, making him feel better. 

“Hey Mac?” She calls, and he turns around, stepping back into the room. “We should keep him, he’d make a pretty good third brother.”

Mac laughs. “I plan on it,” he steps in and shuts the door. “I actually bought an engagement ring but I’ll show you in the morning.”


End file.
